Games and That Year End Awards 2011 by Clay

Clay-

GAMES

Best Game of 2011
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
I spent a lot of time playing video games this year, but this is the game I would choose if I could pick only one. With over 40 hours on the main quest (plus many more hours of side quests) this Zelda adventure is definitely worth it. The Collector’s Bundle is an excellent deal too! A gold Wii remote with Motion Plus built in? An amazing symphony CD? Yes please!

Best Handheld Game of 2011
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
I had played OoT before on a remake for the Game Cube and loved it, but the amazing graphics and experience was something else on the 3DS. The moment I grabbed my slingshot and used the gyroscope to aim and look around, I was in love. If you still need a reason to buy a 3DS, this is the one.

Worst Game of 2011
Robo Rush
A Mario-esque adventure on the iPhone sounds pretty great, but the controls make the game absolutely unplayable. The worse part is that the screenshots show a joystick and A and B button control, which is not what the game actually has.

Best Innovation of 2011
United States Predator Drones
A good way of hunting terrorist and protecting civilians. (Seriously though, I had to do a whole debate season about this.)

Best Free Game of 2011
Early Bird
This iPhone game is a fun way to pass the time. With a fun protagonist, huge selection of levels, and a pick-up-and-play feel, it has to be the best free game this year.

Best Remake/Reboot of 2011
3DS Ambassador NES and GBA Games
Bringing back 10 NES and 10 GBA games for people who got their 3DS hooked up to the internet before August 12th was a fantastic idea. With so many great games, the 3DS is very hard to put down. I am currently playing Metroid Fusion, which has quickly become one of my favorite games.

MUSIC
Best Song
Red Hot Chili Peppers- Monarchy of Roses
This is the very first song on their new album I’m With You, which is an excellent album. I’m not sure why I like it so much, but it gets stuck in my head all the time. I don’t really like the music video, though.



Worst Song
Florence + The Machine- Dog Days Are Over
I know this song came out in December of last year, but I dislike it so much I had to put it on my list. I saw them perform it on SNL, and couldn’t believe people enjoyed the performance. It apparently is a pretty popular song, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS97V9RcWw0

Best Album of 2011
MGMT- Congratulations Remixes EP
This 3 track EP has remixes of the songs Congratulations, Siberian Breaks, and Brian Eno. The Siberian Breaks remix gives a new take on one of my favorite songs, and is the main reason to buy the album (only 3 bucks on iTunes). The Congratulations remix is pretty good but the Brain Eno one sucks. Too bad you have to buy the whole thing to get Siberian.

FILM
Best Movie Seen in 2011
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
If you’ve seen the other Potter movies and liked them, then you are going to watch this and love it no matter what. Seeing it in a ghetto movie theatre with friends was awesome, and it does a very good job of ending the series.

Worst Movie Seen in 2011
Game Over
This movie is hilarious if you watch it with your friends, but it truly is horrible. I liked the part when the girl was there at the beginning, but unexplainably absent for the rest of it.

THE INTERNET
Best Website
IsItChristmas.com
Whenever I get confused and wonder if it is Christmas yet, this site sets me straight.

Best Internet Video
HOW ABOUT A GAME OF YOU MUST DIE?!?!?!?!? (On Youtube)
There’s plenty of stupid videos on YouTube (often refered to as YouTube Poop) but this one is fantastic. I love all of the Mario Teaches Typing references.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxv4HHrKANU

Stay beautiful, internet peoples.
-Clay

Games and That's Year End Awards 2011 by Joseph Bush

It's time for 2011 to come to a close. Us three Games and That Podcast hosts are going to give you out our own Video Gaming year end awards.

Categories-
Games-
Best Game of 2011
Best Handheld Game of 2011
Worst Game of 2011
Best Innovation of 2011
Best Free Game of 2011
Best Remake/Reboot of 2011

Music-
Best song of 2011
Worst song of 2011
Best Album of 2011

Film-
Best Movie seen in 2011
Worst Movie seen in 2011

Internet-
Best Website of 2011
Best Internet Video of 2011

Joseph Bush-

GAMES

Best Game of 2011
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
I'll be honest, I only bought two new games this year. The first was LOZ: OOT, and the second was NCAA Football 2012. Understandably, I chose Zelda. This is an excellent port of an excellent game, and I'm glad that I bought this game to be my one 3DS game that I owned for the majority of the year.

Best Handheld Game of 2011
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
Once again, this was basically the only game that I bought this year. Thankfully, it was good.

Worst Game of 2011
Dangerous Conflicts 3D
First of all, this was released in early 2010, but I bought it this year. I think (meaning I hope) that this is just a tech demo for pseudo-3D gaming on the XBOX indie game marketplace. It has some potential, but it ends up looking like Wolfenstein 3D without a gun. You need to play it to really experience it, which is okay because it only costs 1 dollar!

Best Innovation of 2011
Gamification (or whatever that means)
I'll never join foursquare, but I understand what it's doing, and I think it's a really good idea. The idea of making basic life tasks more enjoyable is a good idea, and if this idea can continue to grow, it can really be something great.

Best Free Game of 2011
Angry Birds
I downloaded this in 2011, and I feel like it's recent enough to justify putting on this list. It's free on Android marketplace, and it's fairly addicting. I do hate jokes about this game, however.

Best Remake/Reboot of 2011
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
Nintendo did an excellent job in remaking this game. I feel like I've said enough.

MUSIC
Best Song
Gotye- Somebody I Used to Know

Simply chilling.

Worst Song
Hot Chelle Rae- Tonight Tonight

Please do not make a bad song and give it the same name as a good song. Hot Chelle Rae managed to write the most generic song that I've ever heard, and everyone loved it somehow.

Best Album of 2011
The Wombats Proudly Present: This Modern Glitch
I bought the first Wombats Album back in 2007, and I immediately fell in love with it. They didn't release anything else until this year, but the wait was certainly worth it. It only consisted of ten songs, but they're all excellent songs. Six of the songs off of the album were made into Videos and they can all be seen on the band's official YouTube channel.

FILM
Best Movie Seen in 2011
CKY
The Mega64 Podcast introduced me to CKY earlier in the year. When I watched it for the first time this year, I was laughing hysterically. It was made in 1999 by Bam Margera and Brandon Dicamillo, and some of the skits in the film were later used in Jackass on MTV years later. It's really just a hilarious film made by slacker teenagers, and I love it.

Worst Movie Seen in 2011
Game Over
If you've heard of Night Trap, imagine that the people who made that game were to make their own movie using footage from all of their games. The movie features bad acting, bad special effects, bad video games, and an unreleased FMV based game. It needs to be seen to be believed.

THE INTERNET
Best Website
Cracked.com
Three new articles every day? Yes. I love this website, for it is written by many of the best humor writers in the world. It's full of interesting information about all sorts of different topics, such as history, film, music, science, and video games. It's a great website to waste time on.

Best Internet Video
Retsupurae's Wrongpurae of Dark Seed II
Watch it if you have seven hours.
http://blip.tv/slowbeef/terrible-sequel-headaches-part-1-5-5625283

-Joseph Bush

Games and That Podcast Episode 7

http://www.mediafire.com/?r3u7rwlo8r3iika

Download it here^^^

The 3DS faces another test

This is "Falling For You" by Weezer, off of the album Pinkerton from 1997. The 3DS doesn't exactly create the best conversion to chiptune.

The Nintendo 3DS is a tremendous piece of technology

I know that nobody has played with the MP3 player capability on the 3DS. It's like the Photo Channel and News Channel on the Wii. You might look at it once, and then forget about it immediately. The one strange thing that I had noticed when I did my mandatory single look and then immediate forgetting of all of the 3DS' new features was that the MP3 player could make the MP3s sound like they were being played through a lo-fi radio, give them a continuous echoing sound, take away the lyrical track, or even turn the MP3s into a chiptune sounding song.

That last option caught my eye. To really comprehend my disbelief about this, you have to understand that creating an "8-Bit" version of a song takes hours of work in some sort of music creation program (I don't do these types of things, mind you.) If a single piece of technology could actually turn a song made by a full band into a chiptune version immediately, it would be incredible. So I tried it out. The first song that I tried with this was one that would seem to be easy for the console to handle. An electronic based song, Indo Silver Club by Daft Punk. Did it work well? Well, I'll just say that this video should speak for itself.



Next time, I try out a different song, one recorded by a full band with an actual singer.

Games And That Podcast Episode 6

This was uploaded a few weeks ago, but here it is anyway. Episode Seven has been recorded, and it will be uploaded once editing is finished.

http://www.mediafire.com/?9h99bu8wjmutw5h

Update 10/26/11

http://gamesandthatpodcast.blogspot.com/2011/10/games-and-that-podcast-5-unhalloween.html

Games and That Podcast Episode 5 has been uploaded! We talk about Halloween and things that happened almost two weeks ago because that's when this was recorded.

Also-

Old Sports Games is back! With an action sports game!

New Videos

I've started to try new ideas with video reviewing, and one of them is to start let's playing games.
I'll start with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (I've wanted to do a Tony Hawk LP for a long time.) The first two episodes have some problems with video-audio synchronicity. The issue is fixed in part 3.
http://youtu.be/h-Aui5IIic4
I'm almost entirely finished, anyway!

And also, I'm bringing back the terrible reviews. Now without intros, and now without most copyrighted materials. I'll start with Unreal Tournament for the Dreamcast. Likely I'll do another Dreamcast game next, or maybe an original XBox title.
http://youtu.be/sVPF9tlkbu8

So I'm trying new things, and I'll actually start updating Video reviews once again.

What I've recently been playing update September edition

Welp, it's almost September (I mean, it's the 31st of August, which is almost September.) I have not said anything about what I have been playing since July or so. SO AWAY WE GO

NCAA Football 12(XBOX 360)- This is an excellent game from Electronic Arts. Seriously. I know I don't seem like the guy who is going to spend sixty dollars on a football game in August, a full month before the season even starts, but I actually am. College Football doesn't start until later this week, but I have already played three full seasons in the Dynasty mode, and I feel like I have definitely not wasted my money on this game.

Now, one of the main complaints about this entire series of games is the fact that between two yearly editions, there is minimal change, if any at all. But honestly, there are several changes between NCAA Football 11 and NCAA Football 12. Likely, you don't believe me. So here's a list of bullet points.

-Expanded Dynasty Mode- Dynasty mode is the heart of the NCAA franchise, and the expansion from 2011 to 2012 is very big. The biggest change involves the actual progression of the job of a coach in NCAA football. In this year's dynasty mode, you can actually choose to start your job at a school at the offensive or defensive coordinator positions. This opens up a whole new level of the dynasty mode. You can go through the progression from an offensive coordinator at a school, and then keep getting better until you eventually get a job leading a traditional national power. It makes dynasty even more enjoyable, and I seriously feel like I could keep playing this game up through the fall and winter.

-Conference Realignment- If you have been paying as much attention to college football this off season as I have, you may have noticed the huge moves made by Colorado, Nebraska, BYU, and Utah this year. Since conference realignment is a popular trend currently happening in the NCAA, this game has added the ability to switch around conferences as much as you please. Hell, the game even recommends ideas like recreating the Big 8 and Southwest conference, or making a sixteen team "superconference". This idea makes dynasty mode even more enjoyable, as you can switch around conferences as much as you want, and one can change the entire landscape of football as it currently in if they want.

-Improved "Road to Glory" mode-
Last year's Road to Glory mode was an interesting one, allowing any player to create a college football player's entire career, starting from high school. It was similar to the Madden series' Superstar mode, which allowed one to play a career while controlling only one player. The idea of playing a high school football game has always been intriguing (Well, semi-intriguing to me, for what that's worth...), and NCAA 11 was one of the first football games to actively attempt to create a high school career mode. NCAA 12 expands on this part of the game with many new features. First, you have the ability to play an entire Senior season, rather than just the state championship tournament. Second, you can import teams from EA's Teambuilder into your schedule. This means that anyone who downloads fan-created versions of high school teams in your region from Teambuilder (and, after a brief search, I have seen already 6 or 7 creations of my own school's football team) can create your own school's entire schedule in Road to Glory, and play through the entire season of a football player in high school.

I likely won't do that, however, because that would be really, really depressing. I mean, I've always talked about how the old "Why play football video games when you can go out and play football with your friends" argument is nonsensical, for there is certainly a difference between playing football in your backyard with friends, and wearing a helmet and pads, and going out on Sunday to play as one of the elite athletes in America. But a High School football video game? I can actually go and try out for the football team at my school, and experience exactly what I would feel in the video game, except I might actually be accomplishing something.

Are these three reasons enough for you? If they aren't, then go do not buy NCAA 12. If you personally think they are, then I wholeheartedly recommend spending the money on it.

Donkey Kong(Game Boy)-
With the new 3DS Virtual Console, Nintendo now has an opportunity to re-release several of their old Game Boy and Game Boy Color classics. One of the first classic games to get a Virtual Console release is Donkey Kong. This version of Donkey Kong contains both the original arcade stages, as well as an expanded new mode. While the original game focused more on the control of Mario, jumping over barrels and avoiding obstacles, this new game is very puzzle based. The puzzles in Donkey Kong are excellent, for the most part. The later you go in the game, the more and more frustrating the puzzles become. Thankfully, I have only had to get online help on one of these puzzles, and they feel like the good kind of video game puzzles, such as puzzles in MYST, which give you a feeling of accomplishment after you have figured them out, rather than the asinine puzzles found in some games. I have had nothing but satisfaction from this game, and I certainly recommend spending the four dollars on the 3DS eShop.

Those two games have been the main two games that I have been playing. Of course, tomorrow, we get to download the 10 free NES games on the 3DS, and I will play all of them, and then probably review them. (Likely, I'll try to make video reviews of them.)

Until next month, thanks for reading.

Dear everyone

I'd like to say that this blog is about video games themselves, not gaming news, so do not expect an opinion about the 3DS price drop.

GAMES AND THAT PODCAST EPISODE 2

http://www.mediafire.com/?53hcz0fci8r8aza

We have a fake argument, immediately followed up by a real argument. The majority of the second half of the podcast was actually recorded at 5:30 in the morning in Christian's bedroom. I talk about sports games.

Semi-Pointless Retro Game Review 1- Croc: Legend of the Gobbos

Croc was released in 1997 for the Sony Playstation, Sega Saturn, and Windows (with a version for Game Boy Color), developed by Argonaut software and published by Fox Interactive. Several already established franchises would try to transition to three dimensions in the late 1990s. Some series, like Mario, Frogger, and a few others could successfully transition. The majority, however, couldn't quite make the jump.


Some more than others, of course


Croc fell into a good place for video game characters. The late 1990s saw a number of game characters falling from grace due to certain problems including (But not limited to):
1. Bad transitions to 3D (Bubsy 3D, Castlevania, Sonic R)
2. Dying Consoles(Nights, Sonic, pretty much anything else from SEGA that wasn't sonic)
3. No transitions at all to new consoles(Sparkster, Ristar, Ecco, Zool, Punky Skunk, Sonic X-Treme)

Games like that blew the door open for new characters in new franchises, like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro The Drago, Rayman, and Croc!

Croc's first outing is a fun, and challenging game which I sincerely have enjoyed. Control is solid, music is good, graphics are pleasant, and the story is... alright, the story is kind of useless.

GAMEPLAY-
The gameplay of Croc is fun and simple. The controls are similar to Super Mario 64's controls, which you could say this game draws some inspiration from.
One large difference of the controls of Croc from the controls of Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot is seen when you press back on the D-Pad. In Mario or Crash, your character turns around. Croc just walks backwards. In order to turn around, you will need to press the circle button, which spins croc in an exactly 180 degree turn. So basically, Croc is not exactly the acrobat that Mario is, but the controls get the job done. The actual play of the game essentially consists of getting from point a to point b, after getting over some obstacles. Also, there are several different things to collect, each of which matter to gameplay in equal amount. And that amount is basically none at all, so you shouldn't worry about the collectables. While most of the gameplay in Croc seems to be directly inspired by Super Mario 64, it's still really enjoyable, and it's some of the best fun you can get on the PlayStation.
GAMEPLAY SCORE- 8

VISUAL AND AUDIO RELATED ASPECTS

The graphics of Croc are not terribly amazing, but they look nice, and certainly give off a fun, pleasant atmosphere.
GRAPHICS SCORE- 8 or so (Graphics don't matter much to the game's actual final score)

The music of Croc is tremendous. It works in just about every level, and it creates an excellent atmosphere and mindset for every level. The only issue that I have with the music is that whenever you're in one room of a level for a long enough time so that the music track ends, it just stops, and you have to play in silence until you exit whatever room you're in. The only sound effects in the game are ones made by enemies, collecting things, and the grunt noises that Croc makes when he attacks. They all sound perfectly fine, but the noises that Croc makes can get annoying after hearing them over and over.

AUDIO SCORE- 9 (Audio matters even less to the final verdict than Graphics do, unless it's particularly awful)

STORY
Croc's story is a fairly simple one. Croc is a crocodile, and he has to go through levels to find the king. That's pretty much that. Croc doesn't need a terribly detailed story to work though, and it's a game that you won't necessarily need the story to play anyway.

STORY SCORE- 6 (The story in this game is fairly pointless, anyway.)

FINAL VERDICT
Croc is an excellent game for the PlayStation and Saturn. Even though it's an old game, it's still certainly worth picking up at a used games store if you see it. Copies of this game rarely run over five or six dollars, and they're definitely not hard to find, on account of the PlayStation Greatest Hits re-release that Croc received right before the launch of Croc 2. So certainly, if you find it, check it out, you won't be sorry.

FINAL SCORE- 8/10

Podcast Episode 1

http://www.mediafire.com/?4id181acz7iuckf
Download our Podcast! We talk about games for around an hour and a half, and we have a good time.

Opinions on Sonic Generations

Sonic Generations is coming out later this year, and I'll declare one thing. I won't get too excited about it. A couple years ago, I got really supportive of Sonic Unleashed. I remember reading GameFaqs.com's message boards and having arguments about petty things like "Which characters other than sonic should be in the game?", "What 3D sonic games are good? Will this game be good? "Which voice actor should play sonic?"

(It would be this guy, by the way)

We were all so excited. We all wanted to see a new Sonic game with new features and an innovative new character. Sonic was returning to form after "Sonic the Hedgehog" from 2006, and we would all be able to finally see Sonic's return to being one of the biggest characters in gaming.

But, like most video games it had to be released. I awaited the review scores to come in and I would buy it, once everyone knew it was good.

Of course, everyone knew the story. Once Sonic Unleashed actually was released, it got scathing reviews, and everyone was convinced that Sonic games would never be good again. I spent several months waiting, looking at previews, playing the demo, and then eventually not buying it. I felt kind of stupid, to be honest. I certainly thought that I wouldn't buy a new Sonic game unless I was strictly pushed otherwise. I waited.

Sonic and the Black Knight came out, got bad reviews, and I felt accomplished for not caring about it at all. But then last year, Sonic 4 and Sonic Colors were both released. Not to my surprise, "True Sonic Fans" hated Sonic 4. But certainly to my surprise was the fact that most people found it very enjoyable. Sonic Colors received very positive reviews as well. I thought "Are sonic games improving?"

But now I'm in a hard place to be. I want to buy this new sonic game, but I don't want it to be a huge waste of money. To be honest I want a good, new sonic game. But I also don't want to waste any money on bad games. Generally, I'm very rarely in a position of having $60 at many points in the year. The last game that I went to the store and spent $60 for a brand new game. It was Halo: Reach. I can't describe the amount of disappointment that I felt in playing Halo: Reach. Now, I'm kind of hesitant about buying any new video games that don't either attract my attention by being a new idea, or be a sequel to a proven series that I enjoy.

At the moment, I might buy Sonic Generations. I just don't want to be more disappointed in sonic games.

-The Count

Happy 20th, Sonic!

Sonic CD is excellent. That'd.be all!

NEW BLOG TIME

TIME TO KILL THE PREVIOUS BLOG BECAUSE IT WOULD BE TERRIBLY EMBARRASSING TO UPDATE IT AFTER NEARLY AN ENTIRE YEAR OF NOTHINGNESS! But here I'm gonna say stupid stuff about games and that.

What I'm currently playing-
MYST- PlayStation
Thoughts on MYST- It seems to be a really cool start to what may be an awesome experience. I'm just about to reach one of the ages (Literally, one click and I go inside the door.) I can't wait to play more.
Animal Crossing- GameCube
Thoughts on AC- Time for me and the other guy living in my cabin (I'm at a summer camp, working on staff for the entire summer, just by the way) to get TOTALLY ADDICTED to Animal Crossing again. And I've already paid off my first loan.

Now I've only got to play like 30,000 more bells to add any more.
Sonic CD- GameCube
Thoughts on Sonic CD- god damn it i can't get any further than the robotnik level boss fffffffffff.
I've also never played a Sonic the Hedgehog game with such good level design, without being too simple, and not being too complex (like Sonic 3)
Sonic R- GameCube
Well, my director played it all the time when he was a kid, and he's really, absurdly good at this terrible game. I can't help but try to at least play it.
NFL Fever 2003- XBox
For the few hours that I spend at my house every Saturday, I seem to be addicted to this. You can pick one team from 2002, and then put them in a tournament against eight or nine of the best teams ever in a tournament. I love it. I also don't know why.
Angry Birds- Android
When it's 12:30 in the morning and Cracked.Com won't load, I do this.

So that's about it. I'll hopefully post stuff on this blog again (knowing how well my other one did), and this will be my wonderous gaming blog of pudding and snacks and that.